


Of Frowns and Insecurities

by neerapen



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Banter, Developing Friendships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Insecure Keith (Voltron), Insecure Lance (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) is Funny, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Post-Season/Series 02, Post-Season/Series 03, Shiro (Voltron) is Okay, Supportive Keith, Team Bonding, it's up to you, supportive lance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-10 01:24:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10426122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neerapen/pseuds/neerapen
Summary: After they recover Shiro, it's all back to normal, or as normal as it can be for Team Voltron after months without their leader.But every cloud has a silver lining and some things did get better, notably Lance and Keith.





	

**Author's Note:**

> After watching s2, I was in love with the subtle tellings about Keith and Lance growing slowly as a team. That made me think a lot about how they could get even better when the needs arises, especially now that Shiro is out of the picture (for as long as it'll last). The fic you're about to read is the result. 
> 
> Thanks to iridania and MistyKrider for being the best enablers I could get!

He stands on his lion, watching the planet in front of him, and everything seems okay for a while.

Not long, maybe a second or two, maybe two ticks. He's not sure, nor he wants to think about it too much. It's enough for him, anyway.

"What are you doing?"

Lance looks down and meets Keith's stare, stock still not far from Blue's left paw: "What are _you_ doing? Weren't you busy talking with Shiro about leaders stuff?"

Keith's face does a thing at those words, but Lance doesn't really care. He shakes Keith's anger off him with a shrug and returns to look at the moons, rising far away on the horizon.

"Are you pissed at me because he wants me to lead?"

Lance closes his eyes and sighs as loudly as he can, which is a lot, and lets himself fall, sitting on Blue's head. "No, but I'd like to stay alone for a while right now, can't you take a hint?"

"Haven't you considered that maybe I don't want to?"

Lance pouts at that and crawls as far as it takes him to see Keith's face once again. Blue is pretty big, but from up there Keith's face is still a frowny frown that frowns a lot. "Take a hint, or leading?"

Keith purses his lips, arms crossed on his chest. "Maybe both."

Lance, despite himself, snorts. Because Keith's sense of humor? He likes it. He likes it a lot, unfortunately, and part of him wishes he could forget how to understand it. "Come here, loser, let's frown at the moons together."

"So _that's_ what you are doing." Lance could scoff at him, but he won't. He'll just stare at Keith jumping around Blue like it's the easiest thing ever. He's not going to tell Keith that Blue finds him funny too. That would be like giving him too much information.

"I'll let you know, frowning is definitely your job, but you know me, always trying to catch up."

A chuckle reaches him not much before Keith's stupid mullet (that is growing a bit too long in Lance's opinion) appears in front of him. "I don't frown _that_ much." Keith sits cross legged on Lance's side, arms resting on his knees and hands holding his feet.

Lance wrinkles his nose at him: "Sorry to say, but you do."

Keith tilts his head to the side, looking at him with, hah, _a frown_. "Well, half of the time it's your fault, so you should take responsibility instead of calling me out."

"What?!" Lance sputters, fighting the embarrassment that wants to overflow him. "Don't blame _me_ for your bad habits!"

"I'm not blaming you, I'm stating a fact," Keith retorts, looking at the landscape around them. Lance would like to ask him exactly how it's his fault if Keith is the king of frowns, but it takes him a moment to let it go.

Keith's face relaxes, like he's taking in the Earth-like scenery surrounding them.

Lance sighs, running a hand through his hair. "So what? You came out to look for me because you were tired of _not_ frowning?"

A twitch of lips, nothing more than that. Lance can't even try to understand if it's because of laughter or what. For what he knows, it could be an aborted scowl. "Something like that."

Lance hums, stretching out his arms before letting them fall on his lap. He lets the silence overcome them for a while, as long as it takes the trees to turn into shades of blue and pale white under the moons. The red of dawn is behind Blue, behind the Castle of Lions, but Lance is tired of red. Tired of memories of friends being hurt and things being lost. Lance is not in the mood for talking, nor listening, so silence is good. Silence grounds him. Silence lets his mind be free of terrors. 

Keith's presence at his side is enough.

Lance breathes in, slowly, tasting the strange difference in the air composition on his tongue when he exhales. "You were good when he was away," he murmurs. The twitch of Keith's fingers is enough proof that he heard it. Lance decides to focus on the smallest moon, the one that is actually closer to this planet, too similar and at the same time so different from Earth. "Yeah, maybe a bit rash. And panicky every now and then, but we are a team. We are here to support each other. So if the need arises and you have to lead once again, we'll be at your side." He wets his lips."But if you don't want to, we'll still be at your side."

Time stops.

The night wind is picking up, nothing more than a brisk breeze whistling around them. Lance waits, because he learned to, and doesn't let anything show on his face.

Keith's answer is so quiet it could be lost in the night, if Lance wasn't waiting for it: "It's not easy to turn him down."

Lance nods at that. He understands. Shiro is, well, _Shiro_ : wise beyond his age, a strong pillar of good intentions and focused purpose. But Lance noticed the way Keith is with him. It's not only that Shiro is Keith's leader. Shiro is far more than that. And Keith is terrified of disappointing him.

"I… I tried, because he asked me to, but now that he's back I'm _so_ relieved. Pidge is terribly smart, but also terribly snarky. And Hunk is great, but he gets easily frightened. If it wasn't for you buffering it all, I don't think I could have done it."

"I did nothing!"

"You did _something_ , Lance, stop selling yourself short."

Easier said than done. Lance tries to think about it, but he doesn't remember doing anything strange. Yes, maybe he toned down the banter with Keith completely, but that's because Keith was being a _mess_. Honestly, Keith's plans needed some refining before they could be applied, but they weren't necessarily _bad_. Well, not after Lance managed to make Keith think about it. Hunk had almost a panic attack after Keith's first mission as a leader. Ransacking a galra base with no rendezvous point tends to do that to guys like Hunk, leaving aside the fact that Lance had to go fetch Pidge when she lost herself in downloading every single data she could get her hands on.

Still, it's not much. Not in his textbook. "Nobody died under your command. I think it's a good thing."

Keith huffs. Lance can see him shaking his head, when he watches Keith out of the corner of his eye. "That's because it's Shiro's hobby."

Lance can't help the laughter that escapes him. "Yeah, it's like he's really, _really_ trying to."

"I'm pretty sure I'm going to kill him myself if he keeps it up."

"It's giving Allura white hair for sure," Lance concedes.

"But All― _Lance_ ," Keith groans, hiding his head in his hands.

Lance snickers, slapping Keith on the back. "I almost got you there."

"We were having a serious conversation." Keith pouts, eyes fixed on him. 

Lance pretends not to be affected by that with a smirk: "Yeah, and you made the first joke, so don't blame me!"

Keith does something with his eyebrows and Lance holds his breath: "But I was _dead_ serious."

"Oh my god." That's it. Lance is done. _So_ done. "You are a menace," he sniggers, squeezing Keith's shoulder before letting it go.

Keith smiles. Lance isn't going to stare at him for too long because of that, but he likes seeing Keith smile. The guy doesn't do that a lot, so it's always a bit special to see Keith smiling so warmly.

It makes Lance feel a bit weird inside, maybe, but he doesn't really want to think too hard about that. It's been like that with Keith related stuff since… the Garrison? Perhaps it changed into something different after Voltron, but Lance isn't too scared about his weird admiration for Keith. It's there. It's always been there. Nothing new under the, huh, _moons_.

Silence stretches between them, but it's different. Quiet, but serene. Lance drinks it in, lets the sensation engulf him and set him free from thoughts that were dumb, anyway. Maybe Keith is right, maybe Lance is actually useful to the team.

It's hard to believe, when he's surrounded by raw talent, geniuses and princesses.

Keith clicks his tongue, conquering Lance's attention with ease: "Sometimes I think that he's asking me too much. But he keeps stressing that I have it in me, that I can be a leader." Keith grunts, draws up his left knee and lets his elbow on it, holding his head with the palm of the hand. "What if I don't? What if I fuck it up irreparably? It wouldn't be the first time."

Lance inhales slowly. He is pretty sure that Keith is talking about the Garrison, but he could be wrong. They usually avoid that topic like a plague, both of them for their own reasons. Lance still didn't manage to tell Keith why he used to be so pissed at him all the time.

"But it's different now. You got us."

"Remember when I tried to fight Zarkon alone?" Keith's voice is a sour mutter of self deprecation.

Lance rolls his eyes and holds up his hands in exasperation at that. "Yeah, that happened. You screwed up, I screwed up, even Shiro screwed it up once." Damn, even Allura screwed up the part-galra Keith situation like a champion, but Lance is not going to put that topic on the table anytime soon. It stressed him for the whole ordeal, he can't even try to understand how it could have been for Keith.

"But―"

Lance zips Keith's rebuttal with a cutting motion of his hand: "We all make mistakes, Keith. It's okay. We are still learning. And yeah, we are learning while risking our lives, and it's terrifying, but you know what? We won't do the same mistake twice." He points at Keith, at the Castle of Lions, then at himself too: " We are getting better thanks to those dumb mistakes, deal with it."

Keith relaxes with a huff, back falling on Blue's head, eyes fixed on the stars above them. "We should be quicker."

"Because _of course_ that's what you say," Lance deadpans.

Keith hunches his shoulders sheepishly, but doesn't reply. Lance lets it slide, falling at Keith's side in a mirror of his position.

The stars above them are all wrong. Lance breathes in and fights the sense of displacement that wants to eat him up. He focuses on Keith, radiating warmth like some kind of cliché Guardian of Fire.

Lance wonders if he himself drips cold, if Hunk's hugs are so great because it's like being embraced by the ground, if Pidge's ability to stay up all night without getting too tired is because of Green, if Shiro smells like ozone or something.

"Lance?"

Lance hums in response, closing his eyes and focusing on the sound of leaves gently caressed by the wind.

"If I try to do something stupid again, can you…" Keith stops midsentence, but Lance nods anyway.

"Yeah, I got you."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm actually thinking of writing down a series where I show how they get to this point, and maybe take a peek at what they can become in the future too, who knows!  
> The space plotbunnies are many, that's for sure.


End file.
